Republicans May Begin Campaign to Cut Pro-Abortion UNFPA Funding

Republicans in Congress are looking to make more budget cuts and to give pro-life advocates another chance to make gains after the passage of bills that de-fund Planned Parenthood and stop direct taxpayer funding of abortions.

House Republicans, last year, launched their popular YouCut web site, which allows the public to submit ideas for programs they believe should be eliminated. Each week three of these ideas are posted online and individuals vote for the one that they most want the House of Representatives to consider. Whichever program gets the most votes will be sponsored by the YouCut program, and the public will be able to track its progress on the website as it moves through the legislative process.

This week, pro-life House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is launching the second phase of the YouCut program, which will now be organized by the freshman Republican lawmakers pro-life voters put in office last November. The options for cuts include revoking the funding President Barack Obama put in place for the UNFPA, an agency that promotes abortion and works hand-in-hand with family planning officials in China enforcing the one-child, forced-abortion policy.

Terminating contributions from the United States to the United Nations Population Fund has been included as one of the first three YouCut options. Therefore, legislation defunding UNFPA could be considered by the House of Representative soon, but only if this option gets the most votes on the YouCut website.

Steve Mosher, the head of the Population Research Institute and the leading campaigner exposing China and the one-child policy, says the UNFPA is the UN population control agency that is complicit in China’s brutal one-child policy, which is carried out through a program of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. He hopes the YouCut program receives enough votes to move the pro-life bill forward.

“With just a click of your mouse, you can cut funding to the United Nations Population Fund,’ he said in an email to LifeNews. “Defunding UNFPA could be considered by the House soon, but only if this option gets the most votes on the YouCut website. That’s where you come in. If you think the United States House of Representatives should cut funding to the UNFPA, then vote for that option on the YouCut web site, and urge everyone you know to do the same.”

The poll will remain open until May 22 and pro-life blogger Jill Stanek is also encouraging people to vote in it.

“How many times have you been forwarded an email to vote on a meaningless opinion poll?” she asked. “Well, for once, here’s a poll that can really save the lives of preborn children. If you have friends who are solely fiscal conservatives, tell them that at $400 million, this choice will save taxpayers the most money of any of this week’s 3 options.

The YouCut web site talks about the history of UNFPA funding.

“In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan withheld all U.S. contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) after determining that UNFPA participated in the support and co-management of China’s population control program,” it explains. “Under the Bush administration, the U.S. withheld funds for the UNFPA from America’s annual contributions to the United Nations due to UNFPA’s complicity in China’s one-child policy enforced through coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization, but the Obama administration and the 111th Congress resumed contributions to UNFPA.”

The budget House Republicans wanted sought to terminate UNFPA funding, which stood at $55 million in FY 2010. UNFPA funding was cut by $15 million, to $40 million in the final agreement over FY 2011 spending, but the remainder is sent to the pro-abortion agency.

After Obama restored the funding, Rep. Chris Smith tried to offer an amendment to revert the language back to the original ban on such funding, but House Democrats blocked him from doing so. Then, pro-life Sen. Roger Wicker offered a similar amendment but the Senate defeated it.

Research from the United States and British governments, along with a first-hand report from the group Population Research International, has shown UNFPA officials working side-by-side their Chinese colleagues and going as far as sharing the same offices.ACTION: Go to the YouCut web site at http://majorityleader.gov/YouCut to cast your vote to de-fund the UNFPA.